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Bobby Fite
Alpine, AZ
Interview: December 9, 2010
I am Bobby Fite. My family has been in Alpine since the early 1900s. I was born on April 25, 1949, in Phoenix, Arizona. My father was Bob Fite. He was born at the Swenson Ranch, Texas in 1914. My mother, Charlene was born in San Angelo, Texas in 1919. My sister was Barbara. She was 13 years older than me and she went to high school in Round Valley with Arlene Saline, Carol Cameron, Lamar Clark, and Betty Thompson.
My grandfather on my dad’s side was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, and his name was C. C. Fite. He died in I think 1944. They thought he was about 97 or 98. My dad’s mother, we assume, was born in Indian Territory in the State of Oklahoma. Her name was Hattie Beulah Wright.
In the early twenties, my dad’s family was traveling from San Angelo to Phoenix and they came through Alpine. My dad was the youngest of seven. He was about 10 when they came through here. So they liked it and they came back somewhere around 1923 or ‘24.
The Alpine highway didn’t go to Nutrioso. It went through Willliams Valley and it was called the Old Susanberg Trail. Then it turned down near Auger Canyon somewhere and went through Sipes place. Sipes place was a mail route and a stage depot at one time. Then it went from there to Cooley’s Ranch which was McNary. Then it turned and it didn’t go through Salt River Canyon, it went toward San Carlos.
The Fite’s Invade Alpine
The older brother, Leo Fite already lived in Alpine. He apparently came first. He bought the land from Jess Burk where the Bear Wallow Restaurant and the Alpine Cabins are. Jess Burk is the one that built Beaverhead Lodge and Hannigan Meadow Lodge.
My dad’s brother, Buster, and another brother came back to Alpine and they bought a little ranch out here where the Luna Lake Bar was, out on the Blue road. They owned the property from the highway to the Country Club road on the west side of the Blue road. They ran cows. He built a large log house and the small cabins that are still there. My grandma lived out there with them. Grandpa Fite died in the early 1940s.
My Uncle Red was here too, so there were four brothers here and my dad’s mother. Back then the people would say, “The Fite’s took over Alpine without firing a shot”. Alpine was a very devout Mormon settlement and to come in and to make a living and get along with everybody and not be LDS was unheard of. But none of the Fite’s was ever LDS. So that was something.
Then Leo, in the early ‘40s, bought that building where the general store is now. They built it for a sportsman’s club. Instead, they turned it into a store and a post office. Leo was postmaster here for 30 or 35 years. The store was called Alpine Mercantile. It had the old crank gas pumps out in front.
Business Interests
Buster and Red were the first ones that had a boat dock on the lake. Red logged a little bit with Harold Whitmer, and then years later Red built a little restaurant on the corner where the Bear Wallow Café is now. My Uncle Red ran that for years. He leased the land from his brother Leo. Leo wanted to ‘up’ the rent so Uncle said, “I’m going to have to charge you a little more”. Red said, “I don’t think so”. So he went across the street and bought the place where Helen Hamblin lived, and Red and his son-in-law, Milton Thompson, together built another restaurant. Then they built the Mountain Hi Motel. My Uncle Leo built the Sportsman’s Motel in the early ‘50s.
Cattle Ranching
About the same time, my folks bought a place over at West Fork on the Black River above the PS in 1939. Then they bought our ranch in Alpine and we still have it. Dad bought it from the original man that homesteaded it, Angus Whitmer. So there have only been two owners of our property. It starts behind the Sportsman’s Motel and up that back street on the north side. The homestead was 110 acres.
Dad ran a lot of cattle plus he had the property over on the Black River too. My grandfather, Bill Ramsell, (my mother’s father) lived right on the Black above the PS and Dad and he joined together and they had a big cattle permit over there. Then my dad had a big cattle lease behind us. He ran about 250 head. My dad ranched until he died. We were involved together until he turned it over to us. We still run some cows and sheep. He died in 2002 at 86.
The cattle were sold to buyers who came here. This whole valley was a big cattle industry. They either logged, worked in the timber cutting wood, or they worked for the State or they worked for the Forest Service. Employees for the Forest Service were very few.
Gas Lights
We still own my folk’s house. When dad bought it the main part of the house was an old log house. In the ‘50s he started remodeling and finishing the insides. There is a galvanized tank out in the yard and everybody always asks what it is. Dad told me it was the first lights in Alpine. It was a carbide light plant. He put carbide powder granules in there and poured water on it so it formed a low-pressure gas, and it was piped into the house to carbide lamps.
Dad told me there were some old trunks in an out-building where I might find the light fixtures. So just a few years ago, I went out there and found the old trunks and sure enough, the light fixtures were there. They are solid brass with big glass bulbs and none of the bulbs are broken. Might bring a dollar on e-Bay, huh?
Cattle Grazing Permits
When the ranchers started gathering off the permits, they all worked together and helped each other drive their herds to the shipping corrals. The cattle buyers would come here. They still do it today but there aren’t many cattle left. Buyers offer certain cents-a-pound, take it or leave it.
Now we just have a few cattle, 20 or so head. We keep them on our place. We don’t have a permit. There are permits now but I hate to say it, the Forest Service has really cracked down on the cattle. It even makes it non-feasible to even have them. Nobody knows the justification of it. Billy Marks on the Blue still runs quite a few. I think Otis Wolkins has a small permit on the Blue. Shug Rogers has one. Elaine Rogers, who was postmistress here for many years, has a big permit on the backside of Escudilla. So there are quite a few left but nothing like it was.
My oldest son and his wife took a little drive last summer. They went through Williams Valley and all the way across to West Fork, across Wildcat Ridge out to the 25 Road and all the way back. He said they didn’t see a single cow, yet the feed is knee deep. Why? It’s supposed to be a multiple use forest.
The cabins across from the Library
My Grandma Fite re-married a fella from here and his name was Phil Stoneburner. All this property across the highway from the library with all the small cabins belonged to John and Goldy Benson. Goldy Benson was Phil Stoneburner’s daughter. When John got old he needed some money so he started selling off lots. Benson would step it off and drive a stake, step it off and drive a stake, and say, “Here it is.” That is how every bit of that land was sold. It never was properly surveyed.
My Uncle Leo sold the general store to Bill and Helen Slaughter. Then Helen took over the postmistress’ job after that. The Slaughters sold it to Clyde and Cathy Porter. It has changed hands quite a few times since then.
Friends
As far as getting along with the people of Alpine, we had some really good friends. Eddie Simpson was one of my dad’s good friends, as well as Shorty Estes, Leslie Noble, Jack Brooks, (where Doc Luce’s place is), and Jess Burk. Others were Doc Hoopes, Aubrey Brockman, Leo Rogers, Willard Skousen, and Bill Slaughter. He had a lot of friends in Springerville too. He was also a guitar player and musician as well, and they built the Silver Spur Bar in Springerville. It was by the telephone office. He played at the Silver Spur too.
The town pet
While Leo ran the store and the post office he had a pet monkey. People here still remember that monkey, such as Danny Simpson, Mike Scott, Darrell and Millard Scott, and Vada Davis. It wasn’t a little monkey. It was a great big spider monkey.
When Leo built the white house next to the cabins he built a straight stairway going down to a bathroom for that monkey. And that monkey would use the toilet. At meals the monkey sat in a highchair at the kitchen table with a spoon. My dad hated that monkey. We’d go over there and that monkey would jump in his lap and slap a brush in his hand, wanting him to brush her on the back. If he didn’t do it, it would turn around and bite him. This thing was as big as I was.
At the store the corner door was the front door. The cash register counter was at an angle. The ceiling was open beam style with only rafters. One day this lady was in there checking out at the cash register. This tail dropped down right under her neck. She went screaming out the door. That monkey had dropped her tail down there and wrapped it around the lady.
The monkey was kept on a cable with a collar on her neck between some apple trees. It would climb up in the trees and one day that monkey fell out of the apple tree and broke its back and was killed. There were a lot of thankful people.
My Childhood Memories
When I was little everybody had milk cows. And all these cows were running down the streets with bells around their necks. There were a few donkeys that ran loose too. Everybody would catch this stupid donkey, and ride him around. So I caught him and put a rope around his neck. Because I wasn’t tall enough to get on him, I was about 5, I got a bucket and got way back and I ran and jumped on that bucket. I jumped clear over the donkey and hit the ‘bob’ wire fence. It caught me good. Cut me open. Boy, did I get in trouble.
We had a creek that came through our corrals. Everybody tried to have running water coming through their corrals because there weren’t many pipe lines back then. So my dad would go out there and milk and I’d go out there with him. He had stanchions to control the couple of milk cows and their calves. Dad would catch those calves and let me ride them. You can’t count high enough the number of times I ended slap dab in the middle of that creek full of mud and crap.
Coming back to Alpine
I started to school in the first grade here in Alpine, and then we were back and forth between here and Phoenix. My mother got real sick towards the middle or late ‘50s, so we had to go to Phoenix. We were back and forth my whole life.
My wife and I met at high school in Phoenix in the ‘70s. We’ve been married 42 years. In ‘73 we came back up here permanently. Our youngest was six weeks old. We have two boys. I had a cabinet shop for 37 or 38 years here in Alpine. We did tons and tons of cabinets. My wife is secretary at the grade school. She’s been there 29 years now.